[Reader-list] For those who HATE Pakistan

[Javed]

Dear Inder
You are insisting so much about Iqbal's role in the creation of
Pakistan, but it is hotly debated these days whether he really gave
the idea of Pakistan or not. Although in one of his speeches he did
talk about a separate state governed by the Muslims, but he never
imagined it would become the Pakistan as we see it today. In fact in a
letter to one of British friends he later on clarified that he did not
give the idea of a separate country for Muslims which the people are
attributing to him. I don't have the correct reference to that
correspondence now, but maybe I will find and send you soon. Here are
some excerpts from another essay which raise some doubts about whether
it was really Iqbal who gave the idea of Pakistan:

"Iqbal's conception of a modern Muslim state- which emerges from the
Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam is of a state run by
representatives elected by the people. In addition to the supreme
legislative body, the parliament, including the Non-Muslim members,
was also to be the Grand National Ijtehad Council which would meet to
modernise Islamic traditions, civil code and criminal code. The reason
why his book was denounced unanimously by the Mullahs was because they
saw that Iqbal favored giving the state the power to completely change
Islam according to modern times. For example he argued that the state
could ban polygamy and that would be perfectly Islamic...

Thus it is quite clear - from his lectures atleast- that Iqbal was not
against representative rule.

It is also quite clear that he himself used the terms "Social
Democracy" and "Spiritual Democracy", the former being a system of
government and society that sought create equitable distribution of
power, wealth and participation and the latter a system of religious
"movement" which ensured the constant updation of religious tradition.

Infact Iqbal's famous idea of a "separate Muslim state in North West
of India" in 1930 was not inspired by any attempt at achieving group
rights or a group-identity consciousness etc but rather the idea that
just like Judaeo-Christian ethics have colored the otherwise secular
legal systems of the west, Islamic ethics should get a chance to
develop and modernise in a similar fashion in a state of its own.

Thus what he was presumably afraid of was the lack of a moral basis
for the democratic system. (Ironically similar fears were raised
Gandhi in India but Gandhian Religious Moral Philosophy was not
allowed any constitutional expression by Dr. Ambedkar). Allama Iqbal
favored hyphenated democracy of sorts- a democracy limited by morality
determined by Islamic ethics.

While in my view this idea is inherently flawed but it is clear that a
majority of Muslims around the world agree with Iqbal's idea, what
they don't agree with is Iqbal's liberal interpretation of Islamic law
and his readiness to do away with what they consider to be the central
motif of islam. The reason why no one mentions Allama Iqbal's views on
democracy because the current pro-Democracy movement is not concerned
with the issues that have been mentioned above. The current
pro-Democracy movement wants representative civilian rule. Whether
this representative rule would be limited by Islamic ethics or human
reason is an issue that is irrelevant to the movement.

Truth be told Iqbal's stature has been enhanced by the state each
passing year. He is no longer just the national poet and philosopher
but is now a founding father equal to Mahomed Ali Jinnah in the
official state pantheon. How is it that Allama Iqbal- who passed away
2 years before the Pakistan Movement officially kicked off- is held
today in equal esteem to Jinnah ?

There is no question that Allama Iqbal was widely respected as the
foremost Muslim poet since Hali. But there has been considerable
exaggeration when it comes to giving him credit for Pakistan's
creation. According to "Plain Mr. Jinnah" a collection of Jinnah's
personal correspondence, a Muslim League volunteer found Iqbal's
letters to Jinnah in some corner of Jinnah's legal library in his
house in Bombay, after the 1940 resolution. The first edition of
Iqbal-Jinnah Correspondence, published by the Muslim League, is from
1941 or 1942.

In my opinion from the period 1947-1958, Iqbal was celebrated as a
great poet but not for anything else. It was 1958 onwards that the
revision of Iqbal as a founding father began. There are several
reasons for it. One major reason is that Army, as an institution, has
at best always been uncomfortable with Mahomed Ali Jinnah's memory. A
lawyer-politician and parliamentarian as the founding father and the
"Quaid-e-Azam" has always given the army people a bit of a kick in the
balls. Ayub in particular , it is said, could never get over Jinnah's
chilly rebuke to army officers (when they complained about British
officers) informing them that it was civilians who made policy and not
army men. Especially after the threat posed by Fatima Jinnah in 1965,
the army realised that Pakistan with a single memory cannot be good
for them.

Allama Iqbal in contrast provided a much more workable situation. The
Iqbalian concepts of "Mard-e-Momin" and "Shaheen" (even though Iqbal's
Mard-e-Momin and Shaheen could be civilians) were used- much in the
same way Nazis used Nietzche's "Superman"- to invent the "Super-Fauji"
who could dodge bullets and travel at the speed of light ... all the
while managing a pathetic little country like ours.

If Pakistan's 60 years are mapped in terms of Allama Iqbal promotion,
the graph would be highest under Ayub, Zia and Musharraf. The Ulema -
including people like Dr. Israr- the same sort Iqbal had warned
against- have also had good reason to own Iqbal. Much of Iqbal's
poetry is recited by the Ulema because it speaks of Islamic glory
etc."

(My posts to Sarai are not appearing for some reason: could you post
this on my behalf - thanks)


On Tue, Dec 2, 2008 at 11:28 PM, inder salim <indersalim at gmail.com> wrote:
> Dear All,
> I am not even a smallest scholar of Dr. Iqbal, the great poet, but
> 'the present'  tempts me to write a bit on the times he lived in,
> mainly because he was the real force behind Jinnah to push Pakistan
> Agenda.  It is more interesting also because all the people connected
> with partition had something to do with Western thought. Whether
> Tagore was a force behind Gandhi or not but his desire for recognition
>  by the West was ultimate, and so was Iqbal's urge to learn western
> Philosophy.  Gandhi himself had a shallow ( old Testament like )
> outlook on sexuality, temple art and a shallow  understanding of
> class.  See, how Gandhi trusted Nehru, and how Iqbal trusted Jinnah,
> both well versed in western philosophy.  Not surprising that all the
> four were lawyers, and deeply interested in politics.
>
> When Queen of England died in 1901,  Dr. Iqbal  wrote both in prose
> and verse in her honour, which he much later regretted. ( see text at
> the page's bottom ) .He was deeply interested in politics, and even
> won an election by a huge margin. He was indeed a great poet, but what
> was his real dream? His influence was Rumi, the great Persian Sufi
> Saint poet, but did he end up as a Sufi poet or a deep analyst-admirer
> of Holy Book Quran?  He admired Ghalib, although ironically he
> criticized him for his poems written in honour of British Lords. But
> Ghalib was honest, perhaps, this couplet would come to his defence.(
> kay who nimrod ki khudayee thee, bandgee mein mera bhala na huva ). I
> don't know if Dr Iqbal had ever written so lucidly, which he himself
> knew.  ( andazey Bayan agarchi mara shok nahi hai… who mazhab…. Yeh
> mazhab….( my passion is not to chase poetry for some style…., that
> religion….this religion )  which is acutely contrary to Ghalib's.
> Meanwhile Ghalib thought his verse is beautiful only because of  sufi
> saint Hazrat Khusroo, and so Nizammudin Aulia as well.
>
>  Having said all this so hurriedly, we can never run the genius of Dr.
> Iqbal and we need to understand him from various angles.  It is also
> true he was disillusioned with  Jinnah's political procedures, but he
> had no alternatives, and he was himself so lazy to address the
> gatherings himself. He perhaps, could not decide whether he was poet
> or a philosopher. I guess he could have done much better as a poet if
> had relinquished his obsession of Nietzsche (  Khudi ko kar buland
> itna… ) see his style of moustaches and those of Nietzche's  ( may be
> just a coincidence )
>
> By laziness, I mean he loved to live life in style, whether it was
> dresses or food or travelling abroad and falling in love with European
> ladies.  He was keenly interested in what was happening politically,
> here back home.
>
> He was always in politics, and commented on this or that even when he
> was not in great health just few years before his death in 1938.
> It must have been because of his dream for Pakistan that he openly
> opposed to the Ahmadiyya movement  in 1935,  but he was true admirer
> of the same in 1911. Whether that was a threat or not but certainly he
> tried to quash any other representation to the idea of unity of
> Muslim. So, Muslim League was the only instrument he believed in.
> There must be hundreds of such points which can paint Dr. Iqbal badly,
>  but this is not my intention here.  Here my interest is to
> investigate  the reasons why  the original dream of a new Islamic
> nation failed to move.  Dr. Iqbal knew that his forefathers were
> Kashmiri Brahmins, but what mattered for him was his idea of
> restoration of Muslim Past, which was indeed glorious in parts, here
> or there. Was that not possible to cherish along with Hindus ?  I
> guess it was, but, was Gandhi's  love for Lord Ram too much for him to
> consider that possibility. The  reason for his  early love for Hazrat
> Mirza Ghulam  Mohammad (  1835-1908, the founder of Ahmediyyas ) was
> because of his open criticism of Christians and Arya Samjis. His later
> criticism of Ahmediyyas was because it consolidated as a sect.
>
>  But he himself says that Hazrat Mirza was the truest admirer of
> Quran.   But that was before, now he saw a chance for all the Muslims
> of India to realize his dream, with a tremendous Islamic past as
> heritage, and with a real Prophet as messiah of compassion and
> simplicity. But Pakistan was not meant for that. It was not even about
> Dr. Iqbal's whatever dream, but it was about power, it was about
> British design to divide the subcontinent for their own gains.
>
> See how difficult is the vocabulary in his verses.   Without luggat (
> dictionary ) it is damn impossible to understand the philosophy hidden
> in his verses which in anyway is hugely inspired by Islamic holy
> scriptures. How a simple peasant, uprooted from Bihar and Punjab could
> have made his poetry as their ideal for future life.  For a typical
> Punjabi there was a great folk culture , music and poetry, for a
> Sindhi and Bengali it was his own and so on…  He certainly was quite
> sophisticated for an ordinary Muslim to follow.
>
> Dr. Iqbal is in his  Mausoleum, and Mr. Jinnah is thinly visible in
> the Pakistani currency notes. Who sings Iqbal in Pakistan, none, other
> than a sufi who has read Bange-Dara. His poetry is lasting as and when
> he comes out of the pretension of being a philosopher. A peasant, a
> labourer, a simple factory worker or a clerk is hardly aware about Dr.
> Iqbal. It is too difficult, that must be the inner reality in
> Pakistan.
>
> Since 1947, it was indeed the new green flag with crescent on it which
> must have driven masses to love Pakistan. Next, it must be Army and
> their vested interests which are holding Pakistan. And above all, it
> must be Anglo-American  foreign policies that support the idea of
> Pakistan.  Dr. Iqbal's dream for a new Islamic world in this
> subcontinent was bound to create this fundamentalism, because if the
> poet-philosopher is difficult then people indeed look for a  cheap
> maulana to guide their destinies. That is what is happening in
> madarasas. This is what I have been made to believe that there are 0.5
> million madarasses in Pakistan. Do we need a school inspector to tell
> us that they don't teach Dr. Iqbal's poetry !
>
> Gopi Chand Narang, a prominent Iqbal scholar says that there are
> thousands of titles on Iqbal in theacademic world but just one or two
> on his poetry. So now, is it fair to conclude that Dr. Iqbal's poetry,
> which was difficult anyway,  was not the priority of people at helm
> in 1947 after the creation of Pakistan.
> So, it is quite reasonable to believe that  average Pakistani is
> innocent, caught between the Army, dynasty rule, Mullahism and
> poverty.
>
> What can Indian do? Not to hate the common Pakistani, in the least….
>
> Having said all this, I again want to come back to Dr. Iqbal's poetry:
> his intense urge to control the word.  It was perhaps, pointed out by
> Goethe, that the inherent musicality in the verses of Quran is the
> reason for its followers to believe in it, endlessly.  Poets too have
> been trying to achieve that magical effects in their verses, sources
> of which are cosmic/unknown. See Ghalib,   Aatey hein gaib say yeh
> mazameen khayal mein, Ghalib sareeray nama nawaya sarosh hai.  ( these
> couplets are coming from unknown sources, and the sound in my pen is
> of angle's ) How similar.  In another couplet Ghalib says that he
> yearns for a home parallel to Heaven but not the one made by God ) .
> Sufi poetry is full of such fantasies and thoughts which I cherish.
> Dr. Iqbal was intensely trying to achieve that magical effect without
> undermining the authority of sacred book Quran.  He had perhaps no
> need to write poetry if there was not a strong tradition of writing
> poetry in Islamic world. If the agenda was simply to spread the
> message of Prophet Mohammad he could have written  some easy prose, or
> moved from village to village and helped people to understand Islam.
> But he wanted to satisfy his inner urge to sit in the company of great
> poets like Ghalib and all thegalaxy of other urdu poets, and for that
> reason alone he  wrote verses, I believe. He knew he could not achieve
> the genius of Ghalib but he had no choice because he had absorbed all
> the Persian and Urdu poetry, mixed it with western philosophy. I think
> the times were such that he could not ignore politics of his times.
>
> with love and peace
> inder salim
> ……………………………………………………..
> here is Dr. Iqbal
> Upon the death of Queen Victoria in 1901, Dr. Iqbal penned an
> epicedium of ten pages, entitled 'Tears of Blood', from which we give
> a few verses below. The Queen died on the day of Eid-ul-Fitr, and
> Iqbal wrote:
> "Happiness came, but grief came along with it, Yesterday was Eid, but
> today came muharram [month of the year associated with the deepest
> mourning for Muslims]
> "Easier than the grief and mourning of this day, Would be the coming
> of the morn of the day of judgment.
> "Ah! the Queen of the realm of the heart has passed away, My scarred
> heart has become a house of mourning.
> "O India, thy lover has passed away, She who sighed at thy troubles
> has passed away.
> "O India, the protective shadow of God has been lifted from above you,
> She who sympathised with your inhabitants has gone.
> "Victoria is not dead as her good name remains, this is the life to
> whomever God gives it.
> "May the deceased receive abundant heavenly reward, and may we show
> goodly patience."
>
>
> --
>
> http://indersalim.livejournal.com
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